bio

Ilya Demutsky is a Russian multi-award winning composer, performer, and conductor. His works include compositions for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensemble, piano, voice, as well as electronic and film music. Ilya holds a Master’s degree in choral conducting from Saint Petersburg State Conservatory and a Master of Music in Composition from San Francisco Conservatory of Music which he attended on a Fulbright scholarship.

Demutsky’s music for the full-length ballet, A Hero of Our Time, at the legendary Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow has won him the most coveted Russian theatre award, the Golden Mask, for the Best Composer in Musical Theatre, and the production was named the Best Ballet Production for 2015/2016. In January 2017 San Francisco Ballet opened its new season with the world premiere of his ballet Optimistic Tragedy, and the year will end with the much anticipated opening of the full length ballet Nureyev at Bolshoi in December 2017, composed by Ilya and directed by Kirill Serebrennikov, after the abrupt cancellation in July 2017 just 2 days before the opening.

Film The Student directed by Kirill Serebrennikov with the music by Ilya Demutsky won the François Chalais Prize at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. For his score of this film, Ilya also won the title of “European Composer of 2016” bestowed by the European Film Academy. As a film composer, Demutsky has worked extensively with Emmy-, TEFI- and Nika- award winning film director Sergey Miroshnichenko (Born in the USSR: 21 Up, Rings of the World, the official film of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games, and others). Ilya Demutsky had also composed music for the opening ceremony of the 2014 Paralympic Games in Sochi.

Among his future projects are the full length ballet Anna Karenina for Joffrey Ballet in Chicago in 2018, and the new dystopian opera Black Square, written in collaboration with US-based artists Olga Maslova and Igor Konyukhov, inspired by the 1913 opera Victory over the Sun but addressing the current political and cultural climate.